Novel Nanomaterials for Organic Photovoltaics
Abstract
Organic solar cells based on conducting polymers have been developing over the past
twenty years, but it is only in the last decade that they have attracted scientific and
economic interest because of a rapid increase in performance with a new world record of
12% efficiency in 2013 [1].
The use of carbon nanomaterials in organic solar cells is increasing because of the ease of
production and low cost of materials. Carbon nanotubes have been proposed for organic
solar cells as electrodes [2, 3] or in order to replace the fullerenes as an acceptor material
[4, 5]. The recent discoveries of the electronic and optical properties of the graphene and
graphene oxide have made them the latest novel materials for organic solar cells [6, 7]. In
2012, an efficiency of 1.3% was achieved with a solar cell containing an active layer
composed of only carbon nanomaterials [8] and an efficiency of 0.1% was achieved with a
solar cell made entirely of carbon nanomaterials [9].
Not only carbon nanomaterials but also recent discoveries of the strong interaction
between the light and small metallic structures are already influencing the research in the
solar cell field. The idea is to include these structures inside an organic solar cell without
compromising the architecture and the cost. Research groups around the world are
demonstrating how it is possible to boost the performance of the organic solar cells by
incorporating metallic nanoparticles with a resulting increase in the efficiency of up to 30%
compared to the standard efficiency of an organic solar cell [10, 11].
Nanomaterials of this kind can generate a number of important physical effects, opening up
new avenues in the photovoltaics field. For this reason, it is important to investigate the
electronic properties of these materials in the organic solar cells to understand if they can
be the right candidates for the new generation of organic solar cells.
Specifically, we are investigating the electronic properties of doped and bulk graphene
oxide, graphene and gold nanoparticles by combining microscopy studies (AFM, TEM, UHVSTM, KPFM, SEM), spectroscopy studies (UPS, XPS, UV-Vis) and electrical studies in order to
understand how these materials can be incorporated into the organic solar cells and into
which step of the fabrication process. We are also fabricating and testing devices with these
novel materials focusing on understanding how they influence the performance of the
organics solar cell from an electrical and physical point of view.
References
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Biography
Marco Notarianni received his Bachelors degree with full marks in Electrical Engineering in
2008 from The University of Rome "La Sapienza”. He obtained his Masters degree with
summa cum laude in Nanotechnology Engineering from the same university in 2010. In
order to complete his Masters degree, he spent six months in Professor Matteo Pasquali’s
group at Rice University in Houston, Texas, as a Visiting Researcher and four months at the
Minas Lab at The University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. In this period, he worked on the
synthesis, morphological and electronic characterizations of carbon nanotube fibers for field
emission applications. In January 2011, he moved to Miami, Florida to work as a Solar
Design and Sales Engineer for Sunelectronics International. As a Solar Design and Sales
Engineer, Marco designed and sold nearly half a million dollar of photovoltaic systems for
commercial and residential applications all around the world with a specific focus in the
Caribbean market.
He moved to Brisbane, Australia in March 2012, where he joined the group of Professor
Nunzio Motta at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as a PhD student. Currently, he
is studying the electronic properties of novel nanomaterials such as graphene, graphene
oxide and gold nanoparticles for organic photovoltaics. As a part of his PhD work, he is coteaching and tutoring an energy course for undergraduate students and an advanced
materials course for graduate students.
List of Publications
1. M. Notarianni, K. Vernon, A. Chou, M. Aljada, N. Motta, “Au nanoparticles grown on
ITO: enhanced performance of a bulk heterojunction solar cell” (in preparation)
2. M. Notarianni, B. A. Chambers, G. Andersson, D. Galpaya, J. Liu, C. Yan, N. Motta,
“XPS and UPS studies of nitrogen doped and bulk graphene oxide at different
annealing temperatures” (in preparation)
3. J. Liu, V.T. Tiong, H. Wang, M. Notarianni, N. Motta, “Electrochemically exfoliated
graphene for transparent conducting films: effect of graphene flake thickness on the
sheet resistance”, Nanotechnology, submitted
4. L. Persichetti, A. Capasso, A. Sgarlata, A. Quatela, S. Kaciulis, A. Mezzi, M. Notarianni,
N. Motta, M. Fanfoni, and A. Balzarotti “Fabrication of SiGe rings and holes on
Si(001) by flash annealing” Applied Physics Letters, submitted
5. V. Guglielmotti, E. Tamburri, S. Orlanducci, M. L. Terranova, M. Rossi, M. Notarianni,
S. B. Fairchild, B. Maruyama, N. Behabtu, C. C. Young, and M. Pasquali, "Macroscopic
self-standing SWCNT fibres as efficient electron emitters with very high emission
current for robust cold cathodes", Carbon, vol. 52, pp. 356-362, 2013.
6. M. Salvato, M. Lucci, I. Ottaviani, M. Cirillo, E. Tamburri, S. Orlanducci, M. L.
Terranova, M. Notarianni, C. C. Young, N. Behabtu, and M. Pasquali, "Transport
mechanism in granular Ni deposited on carbon nanotubes fibers", Physical Review B
- Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, vol. 86, 2012.